ZombieLenin posted:

I think you mean literature is overwhelmingly bad. Pretty much the written word, in general, is the easiest "art form," to abuse as almost any literate person who doesn't have ADD can write a novel.

Liquid Communism posted:

That's about 50% of all literary criticism, though. Someone dislikes <thing>, and will tell you about it in a couple thousand words, but is highly resistant to explaining why <thing> is actually objectively bad other than projecting motives onto the author.

uberkeyzer posted:

Sorry that you can't ignore real problems in society like you used to be able to. How does it feel being like everyone else?

Guess what, cultural criticism has always come from a political perspective, it's just that the perspective is no longer "we don't want to talk about this stuff."

Inescapable Duck posted:

Dan Brown.

Ccs posted:

Most peasant revolts and revolutions in history weren't actually started by the peasants though, they're led into action by radical clerics or former officers who are down on their luck after a war.

sebmojo posted:

Both. Novels involve types, picking from a modest and comprehensible array of human motivations. The artistry comes from how they are deployed and subverted.

rear end frog posted:

since making that first post i've read through the intervening four pages and let me tell you: there is not a man posting in this forum that deserves the breath of life

Neurosis posted:

while that post may be derisive of my rather well-worn complaint (and plagiarised metaphor), it has made me wish there were a world where the most influential philosophers from througohut history shitposted snarkily at each other over an internet forum.

chernobyl kinsman posted:

firstly, what the hell are you talking about? what sexless english myths? secondly, much if not most popular medieval literature is absolutely charged with sex and eroticism. christ himself is an erotic figure in some of it. 'sexual shame' is no bar at all to the mass sharing of literature with nakedly erotic themes and elements.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

But, for example, Star Wars doesn't and never has had an authorial vision to speak of, even if you believe an authorial vision matters.

rvm posted:

To be fair, a lot of literary fiction these days suck so hard. It's pretentious whiny crap that will be forgotten in less then a generation.

CountFosco posted:

You don't have to read TCW to get a taste of New England catholicism, but it does help. Sort of like how watching a Harold Lloyd film helps give you a sense of the flavor of life in NYC in the twenties. Actually, in a very literal sense you don't have to read anything. In fact, I'd recommend you stop reading entirely, given that you seem to be consumed by an anxiety that you might read something that would spoil the image you have in your head of yourself as a very mature adult, the sort of adult that has progressed far past finding dickbutt amusing.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Oh by the way, if anyone wanted to know what Lud-in-the-Mist was like if it was truly great rather than merely good, you should read Man Without Qualities.

Ccs posted:

Yeah a favorite bit of mine was how it can be read like a fantasy book but the sci-fi aspects aren't really hidden. They're there from the beginning, it's just that Severian doesn't have the context to describe them in ways that would make us clearly see them as sci-fi.

And that's all secondary to the labyrinthine allusions and cosmology that Severian sometimes grasps but mostly just relates without ever understanding his role in the story. You're left wondering whether the book is religious in nature or if the religious epiphanies that the protagonist has are due to his interaction with natural forces far beyond his understanding.

A reason why I think it's be interesting to hear BotL try to criticize it is because of the wealth of academic criticism (compared to most sci-fi/fantasy books) that exist for BotNS:

https://www.amazon.ca/Between-Light-Shadow-Exploration-Fiction-ebook/dp/B011YTDGY2

https://www.amazon.com/Attending-Daedalus-Artifice-Liverpool-University/dp/B005Q7GMRW

https://www.amazon.ca/Solar-Labyrinth-Exploring-Gene-Wolfes/dp/0595317294

If BotL can read Book of the New Sun and come up with a compelling reason as to why all of these critics are wasting their time trying to analyze a bad piece of literature, that would be interesting to read. It would mean he's a really smart critic. And if he actually enjoys the books, great! It means Gene Wolfe really is that good.

chernobyl kinsman posted:

porfiria posted:

The argument reduces to "I don't think there should be websites about science fiction," which, uh, grats? Who cares?

Mel Mudkiper posted:

*very duke nukem voice*

let's rock

Mel Mudkiper posted:

never even heard of him

Neurosis posted:

For Severian specifically I find the sound and cadence enjoyable on a visceral level. For me, the baroque prose reinforces the sense of the alien which is also shown by the often bizarre spectacles and imagery of the far future, and the perversity and inhumanity of the Gormenghast-like Citadel and Commonwealth, the traditions of which have become ossified under the weight of time. On another level, I also enjoy the irony that another poster here has pointed out that the purple prose is often describing events that are rather mundane, or which Severian has completely misunderstood (for an example of something later on, he runs across a beach full of objects which are replicas of something he has carried for a long time which he thought of as a holy relic; instead of thinking perhaps there was nothing special in the object itself he has a religious epiphany). It can at times be a little frustrating, since this approach entails a lot of meandering on the part of the narration; often, the desultory pontifications of Severian are proximate enough to something actually true that there is more meaning to them than at first appears, but on a first reading it's going to seem rather obtuse and frustrating. Which isn't to say someone's wrong for criticising it on a first pass, I'm not implying you need to have bought into the holy mysteries of Wolfe before you can properly criticise him. After all, Wolfe himself said he thought good fiction should be enjoyable on the first read, and then increasingly enjoyable on later readings, and if such writing isn't enjoyable on a first pass then he's failed by his own standard.

CestMoi posted:

20 month old checking in, would appreciate if someone would lift the spoon up to my mouth and make aeroplane noises while feeding me tia

Ottermotive Insanity posted:

she was a target of the sad puppies movement,

Lyon posted:

literally googled "sad puppies cereal box" and it's the top result, assuming this is what they're talking about anyway, https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/sad-puppies-3-the-unraveling-of-an-unreliable-field/. stop posting you're useless.

Dorothy Lynch posted:

no way im loving reading this poo poo

no siree bob